Reports of Max Verstappen’s demise in the 2024 Formula One world championship may have been greatly exaggerated.
The reigning three-time world champion reasserted himself in the drivers’ championship with a rebound weekend in the United States Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas, in Austin, TX, finishing third to winner Charles Leclerc of Ferrari on Sunday after triumphing in the F1 Sprint a day earlier.
Carlos Sainz finished 8.562 seconds behind his Ferrari teammate to make it a Ferrari 1-2, with Verstappen 10.850 seconds further back. McLaren’s pairing of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri rounded out the top-five.
More importantly, Verstappen finished ahead of Norris in both tilts, albeit due to a penalty to his rival on Sunday. No matter how he did it, Verstappen still extended his points lead and ended a streak of losing handfuls of ground since the summer break.
“It was a tough battle and I tried everything I could to keep him behind and, in the end, a podium is a great result,” said Verstappen. “For us, it was a race where we learned a lot and we’ll have to analyze that.”
As a result, the Red Bull driver opened a 57-point gap over Norris, who finished one spot behind him on Sunday and two behind in the Sprint on Saturday. Verstappen now leads the drivers’ standings with 354 points to Norris’ 297. Leclerc lies third, with 275.
McLaren remains in control when it comes to constructor points, but only scored one more than Red Bull in Austin. The gap is now 40 points, 544-504. Ferrari is third, with 496.
After pitting later than his rivals, to have fresher tires at the end, Norris harried Verstappen in the final laps before getting past for third at the end of the long straight. Unfortunately, the stewards handed out a five-second penalty to Norris after both cars ended up off track, as Verstappen aggressively defended and went wide on the exit.
For his part, Norris took it on the chin, although he didn’t seem to agree with the ruling.
“He also went off the track; if he goes off the track, then clearly he has gone in way too hard and also gained an advantage by doing what he did,” said Norris. “I don’t make the rules…but we were a lot slower than the Ferraris and the Red Bulls and we probably ended up where we expected to be. I would have liked third, and I think third is what we deserved, but that’s life.”
The fierce battle between Verstappen and Norris stole the spotlight from Leclerc, who scored a convincing win for his third victory of the season after grabbing the lead in the first turn, when Norris and Verstappen went wide battling for the lead. Both Ferraris seized the opportunity and stormed past, with Leclerc never really looking back.
“Max pushed hard into turn one, and Lando defended, and I lined up my exit and overtook both of them; after that, I knew it would be a matter of taking good care of my tires and just bringing it home,” said Leclerc. “We thought that the others would improve more today, but we still had the upper hand. The pace of the car today and the weekend overall was great.”
Sainz also enjoyed a great weekend, finishing second in Saturday’s Sprint race before repeating the feat in Sunday’s Grand Prix.
“Obviously, congratulations to the whole team and Charles for an amazing result,” he said. “I knew the race would be decided at the start and I knew that Lando and Max were going to go hard into turn one, and unfortunately I got the worst of it and I couldn’t get the lead.”
The positive weekend for Verstappen came after several grand prix where Norris looked to have a clear upper hand as the season wound down. Norris finished ahead of Verstappen in five of the last six events entering COTA.
The good result also followed a controversy for the Red Bull team, where the sport governing body investigated a system that it suspected helped the team illegally raise the height of the floor’s leading edge between qualifying and the race.
The FIA found no evidence that Red Bull used the system. McLaren also experienced its own controversy with changes mandated to its low downforce rear wing, which appeared to create a mini-drag reduction system effect at high speeds.
